Japan pension fund "bombshell" expected this year

The Government Pension Investment Fund should announce a reshuffling of assets in which, predicts Nomura, it would sell as much as $200B in domestic bonds to buy overseas assets. The team at Nomura sees the move as weakening the yen about about 10%.

If done at the right time, says Mitsubishi UFJ's Daisaku Ueno, dollar-yen could top ¥110 this year (¥102 at the moment).

A Bloomberg survey sees the fund cutting its local bond holding from 60% to 40%, and boosting its targets for foreign stocks to 17% and 14% (from 12% and 11%, respectively).